Project Aims

The overall aims are to document and conserve the precious biodiversity of a relatively pristine region in Indonesia, to discover natural product lead compounds that have the potential to be developed into novel therapeutics, and discover improved biofuels technologies. Scientific infrastructure development and training of undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduates in the US and Indonesia are also major goals of our project. This project strives to meet the highest ethical standards to ensure the rights of Indonesians to derive benefits from their natural resources.

Successes of our project include:

Documentation of the valuable and unique biodiversity in the Mekongga Mountain Range, Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia

Discovery of new species of insects, nematodes, plants, vertebrates and microbes

Discovery of new compounds with therapeutic activity from plants and microbes in the Mekongga area

Development of novel biofuels technologies

Training of Indonesian and US scientists

Growing biological collections at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Indonesian Ministry of Forestry and University of California Davis

Progress towards declaring the Mekongga Mountain Range as a National Park, to preserve this precious biodiversity for those who will come after us